MADURAI: “Oops... we abducted you mistakenly, you can go now,” was what T Ramu’s five abductors told him after keeping him captive inside a car for over 30 minutes before dumping him on the outskirts of Puliyampatti in Madurai. The gruelling episode left the 26-year-old autorickshaw driver in a state of shock for hours.
The plot and the person
Ramu, a resident of Keelakadaneri near Peraiyur, was waiting for passengers at the T Kallupatti auto stand on Tuesday afternoon when an unidentified man approached him for ride to Villur. Ramu’s demand for Rs 120 met little resistance. All was normal till Kolliveeranpatti where the passenger asked Ramu to pull over near a car. No sooner had he stopped his vehicle than four persons stepped out of the car and shoved him into the vehicle’s backseat, sources said.
He was blindfolded and punched black and blue before he was given a chance to speak. To his query why him, they said that he shouldn’t have married *Rama. It was then that Ramu realised what was happening and hollered that he neither knew anyone by that name nor had he married one.
Breaking dawn
The threats, kicks, punches came to an abrupt halt, punctuated by whispers of blame game among the captors. At Puliyampatti village, some eight kilometres from T Kallupatti, Ramu was thrown out of the car, still blindfolded. With his ordeal over, Ramu managed to alert his friends and police about what took place. He was soon admitted to a private hospital.
Assumption
The T Kallupatti Inspector Duraipandian said that the abductors might have mistaken Ramu for one P Sakthivel, whose auto Ramu was riding to make a living. Sakthivel is also an auto driver. An investigation is on and CCTV footage from the locality is being scanned. T Kallupatti police registered a case under various sections of IPC. (*Name changed)